ndly
motor-cyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going
to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife
had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he
gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning
beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we
dropped asleep.

That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of our little
Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my
tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all
night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our
comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess--I would give anything
to have them all over again. Now we motor-cyclists are middle-aged
warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be
sentimental, we were young.

[Illustration: THE AISNE
(SOISSONS _TO_ VAILLY)]

CHAPTER VII.

THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE.

I'm going to start by giving you an account of what we thought of the
military situation during the great marches and the battle of the
Aisne--for my own use. What happened we shall be able to look up
afterwards in some lumbersome old history, should we forget, but, unless
I get down quickly what we thought, it will disappear in
after-knowledge.

You will remember how the night we arrived on the Aisne Huggie and I
stretched ourselves on a sand-heap at the side of the road--just above
Ciry--and watched dim columns of Germans crawling like grey worms up the
slopes the other side of the valley. We were certain that the old
Division was still in hot cry on the heels of a rapidly retreating foe.
News came--I don't know how: you never do--that our transport and
ammunition were being delayed by the fearsome and lamentable state of
the roads. But the cavalry was pushing on ahead, and tired infantry were
stumbling in extended order through the soaked fields on either side of
us. There was hard gunnery well into the red dusk. Right down the valley
came the thunder of it, and we began to realise that divisions, perhaps
even corps, had come up on either flank.

The ancient captain of cuirassiers, who had hauled me out of my shrine
into the rain that afternoon, made me understand there was a great and
unknown number of French on our left. From the Order before the Marne I
had learnt that a French Army had turned the German right, but the first
news I